Skeletons in the Closet (Phantom Rising Book 2)

by Davyne DeSye

  I must write to her.

  Without hesitation between thought and a need to accomplish the deed, Petter stood.

  “You leap as one bitten,” Faraz said. Faraz looked startled and amused, and even with his the mask in place, his father’s eyes glittered with humor.

  “I must write a letter,” he said. Glancing at their unfinished meal and flushing at his rudeness, he asked, “Do you mind if I excuse myself?”

  They waved him away with good-natured laughter, and Petter rushed back to the Persian’s flat, mind spinning with scraps of poetry he thought to include in his letter.

  By the time Erik and Faraz had returned to the flat, more than an hour later, Petter had finished his letter. He felt certain his affections had been properly set forth (he had decided against his own poor poetry) and his promises to return to her were as fervent as he could make without feeling foolish. He had even written of the carven rose, asking her to think of him as she held it. Sadly, the writing of the letter had not eased his longing for her – nor his troubled thoughts of other suitors. In his agitation, he had written a second letter – this one to his friend, Phoebe.

  He had started the letter by explaining that he would be longer on his travels than he first indicated to her father, and asking her to inform the man, with Petter’s apologies. He then began to describe the city to her, including, as he could not in his letter to Constance, descriptions of the more interesting buildings, and of the differences in architecture he had noted. He was surprised to find, when Erik and Faraz entered laughing over what sounded to be a bawdy joke, that he had written six full pages to Phoebe – four more pages than he had written to his dear Constance. He rationalized that poetic protestations of love could not be too long without seeming comical, while prose regarding architecture required far more explanation. He closed the letter with a friendly valediction.

  “She is a pretty girl,” Faraz said, lifting a framed photograph lying near the letter to Constance.

  “Yes,” answered Petter, feeling a strange surge of guilt over his more lengthy letter to Phoebe. He reached for the photograph, which the Persian surrendered at once. “I took this photograph myself,” he said, all thoughts of Phoebe banished as he gazed at the image of a smiling Constance.

  Erik joined Faraz at the writing desk, and reaching for the photograph, asked, “May I?”

  “Of course,” Petter answered. Petter watched as his father examined the photograph, a quiet sadness growing in his father’s eyes.

  “What is it, Father?” he asked.

  “Would that I had a photograph of your mother,” he answered, and returned the small frame to Petter. And then with strength returning to his tone, “But I shall soon have better. I shall soon have your mother in my arms.” He turned away, his dejected posture belying his optimistic statement.

  “Do you have your photographic equipment with you?” asked Faraz in a bright tone. It seemed to Petter that he was trying to combat Erik’s sudden darkening of mood.

  “Yes, I have my camera,” answered Petter.

  “I would be interested to see it operate, if possible,” Faraz continued.

  “Certainly!” answered Petter. He pulled his Brownie and a long three-legged support from his effects. “Shall we move to the street? It is too dark in here for the exposure.” When it appeared that only Faraz would follow, Petter said, “Father? Accompany us? You needn’t put on your mask,” – there was no reason for it – “we shan't be long and shan’t go far.”

  Together the three moved to the street, and Petter led them toward an unpeopled yet sunny spot at the side of the building that would promise the best photograph. He began assembling the three-legged camera mount.

  “That looks much like a surveyor’s tripod,” said Erik, showing interest in the subject for the first time.

  “Yes, Father,” answered Petter, “although I had to modify it. See? I’ve mounted a wooden platform on which to sit the Brownie. It makes for clearer pictures.”

  Erik examined the tripod, making small exclamations of praise, and then the camera, turning it over and over in his hands. It struck Petter that while his father looked interested, he was too old to appreciate the new invention.

  “I’ll take a photograph of you, Father,” Petter said, taking the camera back. Erik looked self-conscious, but after a brief hesitation, struck a pose nonetheless. Faraz stood at Petter’s side observing the process.

  “It seems quite simple to operate,” said Faraz. “May I?” Petter nodded, but not without some trepidation. He cherished his camera, and did not wish it broken. “I shall not move it,” Faraz added with a smile. “You prepare everything, and stand with your father.” Petter did so, smiling at his father’s side.

  “And now for the three musketeers,” Erik said. “Can you arrange such a photograph?”

  Petter’s face lighted up with enthusiasm. “Actually, I can,” he responded, hand darting to his pocket. He removed a delicate device he had created, which consisted of a clockwork mechanism. Dangling from it was a thin loop of horsehair twine. Erik approached to investigate. Petter spoke to his father as he attached the body of the device to the side of the platform on which the camera sat.

  “This exposure lever on the side needs to be pressed slowly but steadily until the exposure is made. This, you see,” and he looped the horsehair twine over the lever, “will pull downward on the lever as my clockwork mechanism winds itself.”

  “Ingenious,” Erik said, as he first bent and then straightened in his examination of the mechanism.

  Despite his pride, Petter frowned when his father cast a furtive glance about, as if trying to determine whether anyone was approaching – as if he were afraid of being seen without his mask.

  “It is ready now, Father,” he said. “If you will stand by Faraz, I will make certain that everything is set before I trigger the clockwork and join you.” The cloud left Petter’s brow as both Erik and Faraz struck jaunty poses, and he laughed as he triggered the device and ran to join them.

  Later that evening, as Petter lounged with a book, he was startled to discover that his father was examining the little Brownie. Petter dropped his feet from a low stool, and prepared to join him.

  “Leave him,” said Faraz from the nearby chair. “He has always been fascinated by inventions, and has likely invented more ingenious devices of his own than any other one man.” When Petter hesitated, the Persian raised his newspaper again, and commencing to read again, repeated, “Leave him.”

  “I shall buy another – two if you wish – if I harm it,” Erik said from the far side of the room. When Petter looked to his father, it seemed he had not spoken, so engrossed was he in the examination of the camera.

  “Let me remove the film spool,” Petter said rising, “or the photographs will be ruined.” Erik handed Petter the camera, and Petter rolled and removed the spool, careful to demonstrate the process to his father.

  Petter sat, but could not take up his reading again. He watched dolefully as his father took the camera to pieces, thinking again that the camera was a device for the young. He retired to bed while the equipment was still in pieces, unable to cope any longer with his childish disappointment at the loss of his camera.

  When he entered the sitting room the following morning, he was surprised to see the camera, assembled, looking functional as it rested on the desk where his father had worked into the night.

  “I’m certain it still operates,” said his father from the far end of the room. “You can test it, or, if you’d rather, I will buy you another today.” Lifting the camera and turning it in his hands, Petter saw that his father had loaded a new film spool into the camera. Petter’s mouth fell open in astonishment.

  “Ingenious little device,” said Erik, turning toward the window, “made simple for the common man.”

  Petter smiled as he modified his estimation of his father’s inability to appreciate modern inventions, and chided himself not to underestimate his father’s resourcefulne
ss again.

  CHAPTER 18

  CHRISTINE TAKES CONTROL

  Christine had become accustomed to the dull routine of her existence. She never left the lavish room in which she was a prisoner, she never saw true daylight. She was dressed in comfortable clothing, and she was fed thrice daily. She felt certain that if she made any reasonable request – more food, reading material, anything – her request would be granted, although thus far, she had refused to speak to anyone outside the few utterances in French the Sultana demanded on her infrequent and often painful visits. Female servants assisted her in bathing (which often included another inexplicable coloring of her hair) and dressing – the only occasions on which the male guards did not enter the room, although even then, Christine was certain that the guards would appear on the instant if the servant girls called out in alarm.

  Yet despite relative comfort, Christine wallowed in despondency, or, when the Sultana visited her, in fear.

  Erik. Erik was constantly on her mind. Fear for him, hopeful thoughts of being rescued by him, and then again, more fear for him. When she did not think of Erik, she worried about Petter, alone in the world, lost in the inexperience of youth. She spent much of her time lying among the bed linens that were changed and laundered almost daily, or among the cushions surrounding the low table at the far side of the room. She felt steeped in hopelessness.

  Today, she sat on the edge of her bed – she now thought of it as her bed rather than the bed – eyes turned toward an indiscriminate spot on the floor. She had eaten and bathed, and felt no energy for any further movement. When the door opened, she did not look to see who had entered, assuming perhaps that more time had passed than she measured, and that her luncheon was being delivered.

  She was shocked from her trance by a sharp slap to her face, delivered with enough force to knock her from her seat on the edge of the bed to the floor. She brought both hands to her stinging cheek, and did not need the sight of ring-festooned toes that swam in her vision to know it was the Sultana who confronted her now. Not taking her hands from her face, she crawled backward on her knees away from the beautiful, perfumed feet. She did not raise her eyes.

  “Stand and face me, worm,” came the Sultana’s harsh words.

  I do not wish to, Mistress Snake.

  She pulled herself up to stand before the woman. Still she did not raise her eyes to the woman’s face.

  Another vicious slap threw Christine arching back onto the bed, feet swinging from the floor. Christine cried out, and again brought her hands to her cheek, warm tears escaping around eyelids squeezed shut. She took two deep sobbing breaths before gaining the courage to open her eyes. The Sultana stood before her at the side of the bed, glaring with an anger somehow less frightening than the wicked, sweet smile that usually adorned her face.

  “Mistress?” Christine said, and drew her knees up, pulling her legs out of immediate reach of the Sultana. Even as she did so, she knew there was no escaping the woman.

  The Sultana’s golden eyes glared from a face distorted by rage, but the woman did not speak. She raised a hand, as though to strike again, but did so slowly. The sinuous gesture brought to Christine the vision of a cobra readying to strike.

  “Damn him!” the Sultana spat. “And damn you!” She lowered her arm as she spun away from Christine toward the door. Christine watched her in confusion, until the Sultana spun to face her again. Although there was quite a distance between them now, Christine could not help but flinch farther backward on the bed.

  “But, I still have you, and he will obey!” the woman screeched. The Sultana spun again and slapped at the muscular arm of a guard as she moved through the door. Christine did not move as the guards followed the Sultana through the door. She heard the inevitable sound of the lock being turned.

  Erik is alive! The pain in her cheeks could not douse her joy.

  But what did she mean? Did the Sultana’s statements mean that he had refused to join her? Or that he had refused her conditions for Christine’s release?

  Erik! I need you!

  How would the Sultana’s anger at Erik endanger Christine? The sharp metallic fear that had come with the Sultana’s slap grew into a generalized terror for her own welfare – for what the Sultana might do if Erik continued to confound her. Bruises to her face or a blackened eye could be tolerated, but Christine knew from Erik’s stories that the Sultana could – and probably wished to – do far worse. She collapsed onto the bed and wept with the desolation that there was nothing she could do. What could she do? She was a helpless prisoner.

  At least Erik was still alive. She consoled herself with this thought.

  Some hours later, as Christine sat among the cushions at the low table, the door opened again. She clutched an unused pillow to her chest for whatever small protection it might provide, but it was not the Sultana who entered. It was a servant girl bringing her noon meal. Christine trembled in relief. As usual, two guards stood with their backs to the door as the girl set the luncheon out on the table. Christine kept her eyes on the door behind them, praying that it would not open again to let in the Sultana. Even before the girl had finished setting out the meal, Christine reached for the fragrant bowl of soup the girl had set before her. She did not take her eyes from the door, from the guards, as she took the bowl into her trembling hands. Before she could lift the bowl to her lips, it slipped from her grasp, hitting the table before tumbling to the cushions beside her. Christine shied away from the spreading liquid and the soaked cushion beside her. With small curses muttered under her breath, the servant girl wiped at the few drops of soup that had spotted Christine’s shift, and then took up the soaked cushion.

  “I must rinse this,” the girl said, speaking over her shoulder at the guards. Turning to Christine and speaking the most simplistic Persian, she said, “Wash. I will wash.” Christine turned her head away from the girl, and maintained the silence she had made her habit among the servants. When she turned back again, the girl had already disappeared through the door to the bath. One of the guards gave a short laugh, and began to speak in quiet tones to the other.

  Christine reached for the warm flatbread before her, and wondered if the girl would bring more soup. She did not care. She did not focus any attention on the guards’ conversation – thus far in her captivity they had not said anything of interest.

  Her breath caught at the unexpected mention of the Sultana and her eyes flashed to the guards. She lowered her eyes to continue her appearance of non-interest and nibbled at the bread in her hand – but her entire attention was on the quiet words of the two men.

  “It is well with me that the Sultana has left the palace – and the kingdom. She is a difficult one,” said the first guard.

  She’s gone! Christine exulted in the information, feeling some small measure of relief suffuse her. Then: Erik! With the Sultana’s anger of the morning, Christine felt sure that Erik was the cause of her sudden departure.

  “Quiet!” cautioned the second guard, as he huffed himself into a straighter posture. “Do you want to lose your head?” He uttered the last words out of the side of his mouth.

  “The girl cannot hear me,” said the first guard, “and that one,” – here he pointed to Christine with his chin – “cannot understand me.”

  Do they think me an imbecile? Christine filled with indignation until it occurred to her why the servants spoke to her in such simplistic Persian, as if they were speaking to a dim child. They do not know I can speak their language! I have only ever spoken French – or Swedish, as when they caught me at my home! Her pulse quickened as she realized she had a heretofore unimagined advantage. Even with so small an advantage, she felt it the hook upon which she could hang many hopes. She almost clapped her hands in her thankfulness at the silence she had maintained with the servants – a habit that she had come to imagine as childish, and had almost abandoned.

  When the silent guard did not answer, the first continued speaking. “Come, you cannot tell me that you
enjoy the… special demands the Sultana makes of us. I would rather go back to my detail in the Shah’s guard.”

  The silent guard looked to the door through which sounds of splashing still came, and then looked toward Christine. Christine turned her eyes away, cursing the fact that she had not kept her eyes averted. The silent guard had not seen her attention, or did not think it mattered, for he answered, almost too quietly to hear: “I enjoy watching the Sultana’s swaying rump.”

  The first guard guffawed and said, “And you say I should worry about losing my head!” He stiffened to attention as the servant girl came back into the room with a wet linen.

  Christine slumped away from the servant girl as the girl approached and began wiping at the carpet with the linen. She turned her head away, afraid that her sudden exhilaration would be evident in her face. When the girl lifted the tray to retreat, Christine bowed her head to her chest, hoping to maintain her despondent attitude.

  She waited until the lock turned before she climbed to her feet. She clapped her hands in delight as she ran and leaped upon the bed.

  What have I been doing? Who have I become?

  She clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

  Shame! Shame on you, she chided herself, but with buoyant good humor. In your youth you ran from danger and fear looking for safety and protection, and in this crisis you have reverted. But you are not the weak woman you were!

  She rolled from her stomach to her back, and brought a hand up to caress her cheek, imagining the hand to be Erik’s, then imagining it to be her own, caressing Erik’s cheek.

  Oh, Erik. She closed her eyes and embraced herself where she lay, hands rubbing over the length of her upper arms. After all the love and confidence you have lavished upon me, in this crisis I have failed you – failed myself.

  Christine smiled, eyes still closed. She was not smiling at her failure, but at the realization of her failure, at her knowledge that she could act, that she would act.